Hello [B]old Women! I’d love to hear from you today on the topic of ambition. As you age, are you still ambitious about certain things? For example, publishing your writing? For me, this is an ambition that hasn't subsided... in contrast, the trifecta of money/fame/influence no longer drive me as they once did. After I turned 70, I found I had no trouble saying NO to things I don’t want to do. Dive in below. I can’t wait to hear. - Debbie
I am not ambitious and not sure if I ever was. I am creative, organized and interested in many fields at age 75. I enjoy many things and people. I like to synthesize ideas and am good at it. Life is a mystery and I love that.
I will turn 59 this year, ran out of corporate fucks to give almost a decade ago. I have always come off (to others) as successful and have always seen myself as falling short of the mark.
in 2024 (yes, this calendar year) I underwent evaluation and learned that I have ADHD. Like my smart and funny snd often a bit lost teenaged son. So when I say my ambitiousness has gained focus, I mean it quite literally.
I am very excited about this next chapter in my life.
I am very ambitious and many ways. At 70 I realize I am going to commit to less and do more in the sense of taking care of myself, enjoying life, and being who I really am. My husband being 80 has his own needs. I am in Transition from grief, and starting a program to facilitate others who are also in pain . Being the mother of five daughters and grandmother of six grandsons and great grandmother at four, 2 boys and two girls. Reveals I’ve had a very full life in many ways. Although is CEO and involved in the areas of mental health, I am happy to be retired, yet finances are not available to play with as they once were. Being very adventurous today, I’m going to go out and plant a garden.
Still ambitious at 71. Not for the same reasons as when I was younger, though. Now it is to prove to myself that I am still vital, worthy, energetic enough, creative with fresh ideas and relevant, no matter what my age is or direction I take.
Love your questions and thoughts! I've never been ambitious per se - not in the "money/fame/influence" sort of way. My ambition - to coach and serve, to learn and grow, to write - hasn't changed now that I'm 66. If anything, it's increased as I've become more grounded and spiritual, comfortable with myself, able to create boundaries easily (as you say, say No), use my voice/speak out loud and in my writing. I love becoming the woman I have always wanted to be!
I'm more ambitious than I have the energy for. I try to be creative everyday and let go of things I find tire me out. 67 with fibromyalgia. I still have so much I want to do.
That’s a great life history! Tell us more about life in a band! I have a fairly thick skin about mag rejections too - lord knows I’ve gotten enough of them! I still submit a piece now and then, but I don’t spend much time writing these days. Playing the piano is more satisfying!
Who you are shows up in traits, characteristics, and abilities. If ambition showed up in your core when young, then it's still there. What changes is the negotiation and navigation through conversations with others. What changes is your willingness to allow fools to have your attention or time. Over time, you learn what it feels like and sounds like when you are in a state of transactions or a state of transformation. Is this person getting onboard and unselfishly supporting you or are you just a piece of their puzzle and their hope to use you and your relationships with others?
My sense of ambition has shifted because what's important to me has changed. Actually, I don't think it's changed much, rather I've become very clear on WHAT it is. My writing is paramount to my overall well-being and sense of purpose because through my newsletter here on Substack I can foster community, connection and meaningful conversation. These were things I identified a few years ago as being some of the most important things to me (aside from family and health of course).
This allows me much more joy in my writing as it's removed the subscriber count from the equation and allows me to be present with who is there as we unwrap life's great questions.
Gosh, what wonderful comments here. I'm 60 and still have tons of ambition, but just not the same kind of ambition I had while working in corporate America. By external measures I was a big success, reaching V.P. level in a large organisation. I loved what I did, until I didn't... I can't exactly describe one thing that changed. It was a confluence of events and circumstances that came together to convince me I needed to change.
At 56, I left the US after 28 years, to return to the UK, to do a Master of Science degree in Sustainability and Adaptation Planning. And no, I wasn't the oldest person there. At 58, I embarked on another master's degree in Integrative Psychotherapy, which I'm half way through at 60.
I don't have the resources to retire, and will need to keep working for a good 15 years I'm sure. So now my ambition is not a ladder, but a wheel with various spokes: therapy, writing, spending time with friends and family, doing wild and wonderful things on occasion, earning enough to survive and thrive, and, most importantly of all, still be authentically me.
As long as that wheel keeps gently turning, I'll be happy.
Debbie, I'm hot on your heels, at age 67. And already starting to experiment with that heady exercise of saying NO to things/people/experiences. It's just so cool to reach this age and have some trust in myself and my intuition. And not have to grab at everything in order to prove who I am ... because I know who I am. I also share your ambition to publish writing. I would be lying to say I wouldn't be excited by fame, but I also don't need it to be happy. Same with money/influence. Great discussion prompt, and I'm enjoying reading all these responses.
From a [B]old man: The older I get the more I appreciate the opportunities and choices I have each day that are connected to meaning, purpose and value. Who I am and what I do with this precious gift of time are still based on what I believe are a life of passion and purpose. That's a big part of what keeps the fire burning within. It's more Spirit than I could ever have imagined at this point in time. This point in time? Looking at the possibility of completing year 87 in June, no guarantees! So I wake, meditate, write, eat and drink, walk, connect, share stories, travel and have a full and shared life with S. at her desk in another room. Grateful beyond words!
About to turn 61 and retired just over a year ago. I equate ambitious with drive/energy, not money/influence. I feel ambitious to do all the things on my "someday" list for after retirement, including writing. Ambitious to eat better, exercise more to keep my health and my husband's for as long as we can. Want to do what I can, while I can. Once I can't do things any longer (hopefully a long time from now), I will (hopefully) be content to sit in my chair and read. I rarely have trouble saying No since retiring. This is MY time!
About to turn 68. Definitely want to publish my writing. But my ambition is somehow enlarged, not diminished. When I turned 60 I realized both my mother and grandmother lived to 92, and I was in so much better shape than they were at that age. I started contemplating what I would do with the three decades or more of productivity ahead. But rather than change the whole world, I realized I would make the biggest difference by making things better right here in my home community (meaning both the small rural area in which I live and with my work across Hawaiʻi). I do it differently than when I was younger. I donʻt care whether my name is attached to the successes I have. I care more about mentoring and building capacity so that others can take on large ambitious commitments on behalf of the collective.
My ambition for now is to get my garden back in shape.
My husband is legally blind and has a non-fatal but debilitating health issue. For the sake of his safety and wellbeing I can't leave our house for more than 2-3 hours at a time.
I feel a deep loss for all the activities I've had to give up while at the same time I chastise myself for feeling resentful when at least I still have my eyesight and my health.
We make that promise - in sickness and in health.
My husband is a man of great integrity, and as much as I do for him, he would do for me 100 times over.
To have a fruitful garden in August I need to start scheduling, digging, weeding and planting [checking calendar] now.
Logan, I am feeling the tug of my gardens as well, but I am not sure how much I can manage this year. I was just inspecting all of my spring bulbs and found one tiny little yellow crocus blooming.
At 60, I’ve lost my ambition (or even interest) in practicing law. I’d like to just have a basic minimum wage job at the library or something that allows me to get out of the house and chat with people.
I retired from the active practice of law at 62. I do mediations in my field of practice. I refer to it as being paid to see my friends. Certainly I bring all my skills to resolving cases, and I’m pretty good at it, but if it doesn’t resolve, oh well. I fill out the form and go back to my other activities. Although I whine about the admin requirements, really it doesn’t take a terrible lot of time. And I don’t try to make a job of it - last year I don’t think I did two per month. But it also gives me an excuse to still do a bit of Bar Ass’n stuff - basically going to an occasional meeting to - you guessed it - see my friends. But when asked if I will take on leadership roles or even much in the way of activities other than eating dinner, that is a firm no! I have just turned 70, and contemplating giving up even mediations after this year. Can you tell I’m not ambitious about much of anything?
Not ambitious in the ways I used to be--I've achieved pretty much everything I wanted to achieve: traditional and indie publication, scholarship, family, homesteading. But there are kinds of writing I want to play with--grateful for Substack, where I can do this at my own (slower,84-year-old) pace, for readers but without obligation to editors/publishers.
I am no longer ambitious about writing. I was an arts writer, publishing locally and nationally for decades; gave that up for the pandemic and haven't resumed. As an academic in a social science field I published five books and countless book chapters and journal articles; I quit that before the pandemic, when I turned 70, and haven't so much as glanced back. As a writer of narrative non-fic and occasional fic, I've never had any publishing success (I have an MFA, but not in writing; since I wasn't socialized into the field the lit mags were never interested in me). But right before the pandemic I started taking piano lessons. I'd played well as a kid, had a terminal fight with my mother over what I could NOT play (I wanted to play rock n' roll, but no daughter of HERS was going to play that GARBAGE in HER house...). I inherited her piano when my dad died, and after 60-plus years of not touching a keyboard I decided it was time. I'm five years in now and ambitious as hell about playing bebop and the blues. No, I don't have any ambition to perform -- I just want to play well, for myself.
I love that you’re taking up the piano again. My mom made me take piano lessons as a kid, which I hated, but as an adult I can appreciate what I learned even though I’m not playing.
Thanks for your comment! I could barely remember how to play when I started again (I wrote a narrative piece about this - it got me some nice personal rejections from the lit mags)…the first few years of trying again were a struggle, but now I surprise myself all the time with what I can do, thanks to having a great teacher, who I work with on Zoom. It’s a wonderful experience. Do you have a keyboard? If you want I’ll give you his name and info.
Sorry for the long comment. I don't have a keyboard, but I've toyed with getting a practice drum set (they're padded and I live in a condo) and learning jazz I switched to playing the drums when I was twelve and retired in 1995.
I played in a rock band (called grunge at the time) and was supposed to replace the drummer of a woman-fronted band who was popular then. When they rejected me, they gave me a "corporate" answer: Management told us a personnel change this early in our career would be detrimental. Something to that effect. From that I learned that music is a business, and I wasn't ready for that. Years later, I took up writing again. I think that rejection was what gave me a thick skin when it comes to lit mag rejections!
I'm so glad you've found an instructor who meets your needs. Part of what I hated about piano lessons were the teachers lol
I never thought of myself as ambitious in the normal sense of the word, but I always wanted to be seen as ‘good’ at whatever I did.
When you work freelance, which I did from my mid-40s, there is no ladder to climb so your focus is completely different from ‘getting to the top’. My ambition was simply to keep getting work, which isn’t always easy. And then I felt I had to complete any task well and on time, which also isn’t easy if you misjudge the timing and have taken on too much. You feel you are only as good as your last job, rather like an actor. But I absolutely loved working freelance, which meant getting a great variety of constantly challenging work, which kept me on my mental toes.
Ambition has very little place once you are in your 80s – you just want to stay healthy and keep interested in things. I think this is a very good thing for the lives of all older people, making life much more relaxing. No one is busy talking about promotions or prizes or whatever they might once have been ambitious for. And, whatever your background, it equalises everyone. Maybe you used to be a CEO or maybe you used to be a housewife – no one cares, it’s the person you are now that matters. Another reason to enjoy being old.
No, I really am not ambitious in the ways I once was. Even about writing. Maybe it's because I have the experience of being traditionally published and knowing that doing so again isn't likely to result in anything I really care about. Like you, I don't care about money/fame/influence. Sure, money would be nice--but I don't have enough ambition to drive me to do the kinds of things I'd have to do to (only maybe) get that payoff. It's so nice to be good with doing things because I want to, and not because I want or need a particular outcome from doing them.
Oh gosh, I don’t remember anyone ever asking me that. Thank you! I just didn’t end up doing what I wanted to do for a career. In college I majored in music for two years with a piano concentration (mainly doing that, frankly, because my mother had always wanted to be a musician and pushed it.) And then my junior year, I switched to English, neither of which majors led to a career (though after college I taught piano for a while but realized it was not my ‘forte’, I was very pianissimo as a piano teacher 😅) What I had always been interested in, but was shy to tell anyone, was psychology and social work. I think sometimes it is difficult to reveal what one thinks she would be good at?! I did do volunteer work for years in a housing project in D.C., first tutoring and then helping the teens there in whatever ways I could. Now they are grown, with children, and I still help them. So now I’ve been looking at masters degree programs in social work. I hope it’s not too late and I hope I’m not too old. 🙏🏻🙌🏼
Karen, if it helps, I went back to school at age 52 to get a degree in clinical mental health counseling (very similar degree to social work). I sat in classes with 20-year-olds. With school, internships, working for agencies to get experience and earn licensure, etc., it took me until age 56 to start my own private practice. It's been a great second career for me. If it has always been in your blood, I say go for it! Not too late! My mentor is 91 and still practicing. She was my inspiration. You can sit and talk to clients at any age, as long as you still have a functioning brain. I know I'm sort of a mother/grandmother figure to some of my younger clients, but it all works well.
@Debbie Weil Thanks for the interesting question which sent me back to the dictionary ... having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed. At 78, I don't have a lot of drive to "succeed" but still have a ton of stuff I want to learn, create, write, see, and understand. I'm thinking more about how my writing can be of service to others as well as revealing more insights into myself and who I am. I am still fascinated by the world and, as long as I have health and energy, don't think I'll ever be "done." Looking forward to hearing from other (b)old women.
My ambitions/goals have changed during my life. I have achieved a lot of the goals I set for myself and now, being retired, my goals are to see as much of the country and our world as possible. I have a bucket list of adventures/experiences that I'm working on.
I’ve had to give up many writing ambitions, partly because of needing to make a living, but even now when retired can’t get it together to do what needs to be done.
I was once a budding English professor until I became disabled. I stopped writing for years, but have since picked it up again. It’s my hope to have my novel-in-progress traditionally published despite being in midlife.
![[B]OLD AGE with Debbie Weil](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_36,h_36,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdb1d7636-a0e5-44ef-846d-a6df558eff16_1280x1280.png)
![[B]OLD AGE with Debbie Weil](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/e_trim:10:white/e_trim:10:transparent/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb939748d-5d80-4d0f-867c-2ed252ac633c_1344x256.png)
I seem not to have lost ambition… I’m perhaps more reflective on what and when to pursue the new shiny object I feel interested in….
I am not ambitious and not sure if I ever was. I am creative, organized and interested in many fields at age 75. I enjoy many things and people. I like to synthesize ideas and am good at it. Life is a mystery and I love that.
My ambitiousness had become more focused.
I will turn 59 this year, ran out of corporate fucks to give almost a decade ago. I have always come off (to others) as successful and have always seen myself as falling short of the mark.
in 2024 (yes, this calendar year) I underwent evaluation and learned that I have ADHD. Like my smart and funny snd often a bit lost teenaged son. So when I say my ambitiousness has gained focus, I mean it quite literally.
I am very excited about this next chapter in my life.
I am very ambitious and many ways. At 70 I realize I am going to commit to less and do more in the sense of taking care of myself, enjoying life, and being who I really am. My husband being 80 has his own needs. I am in Transition from grief, and starting a program to facilitate others who are also in pain . Being the mother of five daughters and grandmother of six grandsons and great grandmother at four, 2 boys and two girls. Reveals I’ve had a very full life in many ways. Although is CEO and involved in the areas of mental health, I am happy to be retired, yet finances are not available to play with as they once were. Being very adventurous today, I’m going to go out and plant a garden.
Still ambitious at 71. Not for the same reasons as when I was younger, though. Now it is to prove to myself that I am still vital, worthy, energetic enough, creative with fresh ideas and relevant, no matter what my age is or direction I take.
Not as ambitious as in my youth but still seeking credibility via publishing. Great question. 🥰
ha! it sounds like we're both plenty ambitious about our writing...
Love your questions and thoughts! I've never been ambitious per se - not in the "money/fame/influence" sort of way. My ambition - to coach and serve, to learn and grow, to write - hasn't changed now that I'm 66. If anything, it's increased as I've become more grounded and spiritual, comfortable with myself, able to create boundaries easily (as you say, say No), use my voice/speak out loud and in my writing. I love becoming the woman I have always wanted to be!
I agree with you, very well written
Balance boundaries and ADHD..easy does it...
I'm more ambitious than I have the energy for. I try to be creative everyday and let go of things I find tire me out. 67 with fibromyalgia. I still have so much I want to do.
That’s a great life history! Tell us more about life in a band! I have a fairly thick skin about mag rejections too - lord knows I’ve gotten enough of them! I still submit a piece now and then, but I don’t spend much time writing these days. Playing the piano is more satisfying!
Who you are shows up in traits, characteristics, and abilities. If ambition showed up in your core when young, then it's still there. What changes is the negotiation and navigation through conversations with others. What changes is your willingness to allow fools to have your attention or time. Over time, you learn what it feels like and sounds like when you are in a state of transactions or a state of transformation. Is this person getting onboard and unselfishly supporting you or are you just a piece of their puzzle and their hope to use you and your relationships with others?
oh my, YES!
My sense of ambition has shifted because what's important to me has changed. Actually, I don't think it's changed much, rather I've become very clear on WHAT it is. My writing is paramount to my overall well-being and sense of purpose because through my newsletter here on Substack I can foster community, connection and meaningful conversation. These were things I identified a few years ago as being some of the most important things to me (aside from family and health of course).
This allows me much more joy in my writing as it's removed the subscriber count from the equation and allows me to be present with who is there as we unwrap life's great questions.
Gosh, what wonderful comments here. I'm 60 and still have tons of ambition, but just not the same kind of ambition I had while working in corporate America. By external measures I was a big success, reaching V.P. level in a large organisation. I loved what I did, until I didn't... I can't exactly describe one thing that changed. It was a confluence of events and circumstances that came together to convince me I needed to change.
At 56, I left the US after 28 years, to return to the UK, to do a Master of Science degree in Sustainability and Adaptation Planning. And no, I wasn't the oldest person there. At 58, I embarked on another master's degree in Integrative Psychotherapy, which I'm half way through at 60.
I don't have the resources to retire, and will need to keep working for a good 15 years I'm sure. So now my ambition is not a ladder, but a wheel with various spokes: therapy, writing, spending time with friends and family, doing wild and wonderful things on occasion, earning enough to survive and thrive, and, most importantly of all, still be authentically me.
As long as that wheel keeps gently turning, I'll be happy.
Debbie, I'm hot on your heels, at age 67. And already starting to experiment with that heady exercise of saying NO to things/people/experiences. It's just so cool to reach this age and have some trust in myself and my intuition. And not have to grab at everything in order to prove who I am ... because I know who I am. I also share your ambition to publish writing. I would be lying to say I wouldn't be excited by fame, but I also don't need it to be happy. Same with money/influence. Great discussion prompt, and I'm enjoying reading all these responses.
I’m only now learning how to set boundaries.
Believe me, Barb ... it's a lot of fun, once you get the hang of it! 😁
From a [B]old man: The older I get the more I appreciate the opportunities and choices I have each day that are connected to meaning, purpose and value. Who I am and what I do with this precious gift of time are still based on what I believe are a life of passion and purpose. That's a big part of what keeps the fire burning within. It's more Spirit than I could ever have imagined at this point in time. This point in time? Looking at the possibility of completing year 87 in June, no guarantees! So I wake, meditate, write, eat and drink, walk, connect, share stories, travel and have a full and shared life with S. at her desk in another room. Grateful beyond words!
thank you for jumping in, Gary!
About to turn 61 and retired just over a year ago. I equate ambitious with drive/energy, not money/influence. I feel ambitious to do all the things on my "someday" list for after retirement, including writing. Ambitious to eat better, exercise more to keep my health and my husband's for as long as we can. Want to do what I can, while I can. Once I can't do things any longer (hopefully a long time from now), I will (hopefully) be content to sit in my chair and read. I rarely have trouble saying No since retiring. This is MY time!
About to turn 68. Definitely want to publish my writing. But my ambition is somehow enlarged, not diminished. When I turned 60 I realized both my mother and grandmother lived to 92, and I was in so much better shape than they were at that age. I started contemplating what I would do with the three decades or more of productivity ahead. But rather than change the whole world, I realized I would make the biggest difference by making things better right here in my home community (meaning both the small rural area in which I live and with my work across Hawaiʻi). I do it differently than when I was younger. I donʻt care whether my name is attached to the successes I have. I care more about mentoring and building capacity so that others can take on large ambitious commitments on behalf of the collective.
My ambition for now is to get my garden back in shape.
My husband is legally blind and has a non-fatal but debilitating health issue. For the sake of his safety and wellbeing I can't leave our house for more than 2-3 hours at a time.
I feel a deep loss for all the activities I've had to give up while at the same time I chastise myself for feeling resentful when at least I still have my eyesight and my health.
We make that promise - in sickness and in health.
My husband is a man of great integrity, and as much as I do for him, he would do for me 100 times over.
To have a fruitful garden in August I need to start scheduling, digging, weeding and planting [checking calendar] now.
Logan, I am feeling the tug of my gardens as well, but I am not sure how much I can manage this year. I was just inspecting all of my spring bulbs and found one tiny little yellow crocus blooming.
what a great project - to do now and then look forward to the results later in the summer!
At 60, I’ve lost my ambition (or even interest) in practicing law. I’d like to just have a basic minimum wage job at the library or something that allows me to get out of the house and chat with people.
I retired from the active practice of law at 62. I do mediations in my field of practice. I refer to it as being paid to see my friends. Certainly I bring all my skills to resolving cases, and I’m pretty good at it, but if it doesn’t resolve, oh well. I fill out the form and go back to my other activities. Although I whine about the admin requirements, really it doesn’t take a terrible lot of time. And I don’t try to make a job of it - last year I don’t think I did two per month. But it also gives me an excuse to still do a bit of Bar Ass’n stuff - basically going to an occasional meeting to - you guessed it - see my friends. But when asked if I will take on leadership roles or even much in the way of activities other than eating dinner, that is a firm no! I have just turned 70, and contemplating giving up even mediations after this year. Can you tell I’m not ambitious about much of anything?
2 mediations a month sounds really nice. I have been thinking of doing the ADR training.
Not ambitious in the ways I used to be--I've achieved pretty much everything I wanted to achieve: traditional and indie publication, scholarship, family, homesteading. But there are kinds of writing I want to play with--grateful for Substack, where I can do this at my own (slower,84-year-old) pace, for readers but without obligation to editors/publishers.
Susan Wittig Albert! I’m a fan.
I am no longer ambitious about writing. I was an arts writer, publishing locally and nationally for decades; gave that up for the pandemic and haven't resumed. As an academic in a social science field I published five books and countless book chapters and journal articles; I quit that before the pandemic, when I turned 70, and haven't so much as glanced back. As a writer of narrative non-fic and occasional fic, I've never had any publishing success (I have an MFA, but not in writing; since I wasn't socialized into the field the lit mags were never interested in me). But right before the pandemic I started taking piano lessons. I'd played well as a kid, had a terminal fight with my mother over what I could NOT play (I wanted to play rock n' roll, but no daughter of HERS was going to play that GARBAGE in HER house...). I inherited her piano when my dad died, and after 60-plus years of not touching a keyboard I decided it was time. I'm five years in now and ambitious as hell about playing bebop and the blues. No, I don't have any ambition to perform -- I just want to play well, for myself.
I love that you’re taking up the piano again. My mom made me take piano lessons as a kid, which I hated, but as an adult I can appreciate what I learned even though I’m not playing.
Thanks for your comment! I could barely remember how to play when I started again (I wrote a narrative piece about this - it got me some nice personal rejections from the lit mags)…the first few years of trying again were a struggle, but now I surprise myself all the time with what I can do, thanks to having a great teacher, who I work with on Zoom. It’s a wonderful experience. Do you have a keyboard? If you want I’ll give you his name and info.
Sorry for the long comment. I don't have a keyboard, but I've toyed with getting a practice drum set (they're padded and I live in a condo) and learning jazz I switched to playing the drums when I was twelve and retired in 1995.
I played in a rock band (called grunge at the time) and was supposed to replace the drummer of a woman-fronted band who was popular then. When they rejected me, they gave me a "corporate" answer: Management told us a personnel change this early in our career would be detrimental. Something to that effect. From that I learned that music is a business, and I wasn't ready for that. Years later, I took up writing again. I think that rejection was what gave me a thick skin when it comes to lit mag rejections!
I'm so glad you've found an instructor who meets your needs. Part of what I hated about piano lessons were the teachers lol
I never thought of myself as ambitious in the normal sense of the word, but I always wanted to be seen as ‘good’ at whatever I did.
When you work freelance, which I did from my mid-40s, there is no ladder to climb so your focus is completely different from ‘getting to the top’. My ambition was simply to keep getting work, which isn’t always easy. And then I felt I had to complete any task well and on time, which also isn’t easy if you misjudge the timing and have taken on too much. You feel you are only as good as your last job, rather like an actor. But I absolutely loved working freelance, which meant getting a great variety of constantly challenging work, which kept me on my mental toes.
Ambition has very little place once you are in your 80s – you just want to stay healthy and keep interested in things. I think this is a very good thing for the lives of all older people, making life much more relaxing. No one is busy talking about promotions or prizes or whatever they might once have been ambitious for. And, whatever your background, it equalises everyone. Maybe you used to be a CEO or maybe you used to be a housewife – no one cares, it’s the person you are now that matters. Another reason to enjoy being old.
No, I really am not ambitious in the ways I once was. Even about writing. Maybe it's because I have the experience of being traditionally published and knowing that doing so again isn't likely to result in anything I really care about. Like you, I don't care about money/fame/influence. Sure, money would be nice--but I don't have enough ambition to drive me to do the kinds of things I'd have to do to (only maybe) get that payoff. It's so nice to be good with doing things because I want to, and not because I want or need a particular outcome from doing them.
My ambition is to still do what I should have done when I was young.
aha, I've heard that one before... and even experienced it! tell us more...
Oh gosh, I don’t remember anyone ever asking me that. Thank you! I just didn’t end up doing what I wanted to do for a career. In college I majored in music for two years with a piano concentration (mainly doing that, frankly, because my mother had always wanted to be a musician and pushed it.) And then my junior year, I switched to English, neither of which majors led to a career (though after college I taught piano for a while but realized it was not my ‘forte’, I was very pianissimo as a piano teacher 😅) What I had always been interested in, but was shy to tell anyone, was psychology and social work. I think sometimes it is difficult to reveal what one thinks she would be good at?! I did do volunteer work for years in a housing project in D.C., first tutoring and then helping the teens there in whatever ways I could. Now they are grown, with children, and I still help them. So now I’ve been looking at masters degree programs in social work. I hope it’s not too late and I hope I’m not too old. 🙏🏻🙌🏼
Karen, if it helps, I went back to school at age 52 to get a degree in clinical mental health counseling (very similar degree to social work). I sat in classes with 20-year-olds. With school, internships, working for agencies to get experience and earn licensure, etc., it took me until age 56 to start my own private practice. It's been a great second career for me. If it has always been in your blood, I say go for it! Not too late! My mentor is 91 and still practicing. She was my inspiration. You can sit and talk to clients at any age, as long as you still have a functioning brain. I know I'm sort of a mother/grandmother figure to some of my younger clients, but it all works well.
Oh thank you!!! What an encouraging story!!!
@Debbie Weil Thanks for the interesting question which sent me back to the dictionary ... having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed. At 78, I don't have a lot of drive to "succeed" but still have a ton of stuff I want to learn, create, write, see, and understand. I'm thinking more about how my writing can be of service to others as well as revealing more insights into myself and who I am. I am still fascinated by the world and, as long as I have health and energy, don't think I'll ever be "done." Looking forward to hearing from other (b)old women.
Animal rescues sometimes have needs for volunteer writers to write the pets’ bios. Just a suggestion.
omg I love this!
Thanks, Barb ... that's a great idea ... doesn't fit my particular path but I know other writers who would be great at it.
My ambitions/goals have changed during my life. I have achieved a lot of the goals I set for myself and now, being retired, my goals are to see as much of the country and our world as possible. I have a bucket list of adventures/experiences that I'm working on.
My ambition to succeed--and my general interest--in Corporate America is gone, but I am still incredibly ambitious about writing and publishing.
I’ve had to give up many writing ambitions, partly because of needing to make a living, but even now when retired can’t get it together to do what needs to be done.
Jenny, it’s not too late! And commenting on Substack “counts” as writing.
Yes, but it is more nuanced now.
I was once a budding English professor until I became disabled. I stopped writing for years, but have since picked it up again. It’s my hope to have my novel-in-progress traditionally published despite being in midlife.
Working on that same goal over here, Barb. Good luck to you and your book!
Thanks, and good luck to you too!